RULE 4 - Do not code the CONFIGURATION SECTION if the compiler
allows you to.
Forty-one out of fifty programs coded the CONFIGURATION SECTION.
Many continued to code the name of a previous mainframe which
has not been available in this installation for several years,
apparently just copying the entry from a previous program. Given
that the current compiler in use at this installation gives a
warning message for omitting this SECTION, it is encouraging that
nine programs omitted the entry, although at the same time it
reinforces the authors hypothesis when several programmers ignored
the actual contents of the section.
RULE 5 - Assign files to an external name only, without all
the device dependent information.
Five programs did not have any SELECT statements, since these
programs only manipulated a data base and did not have any external
files. Of the remaining forty-five programs, all forty-five used
the UT-S-filename version of the ASSIGN statement. The availability
of assigning a file to just an external name appears to be unknown,
although it has been available with the current compiler for over
five years. If VSAM files were being used, more people might be
using the new version of the ASSIGN, since VSAM files require
this format, however, since VSAM is not in widespread use in this
installation, no one appears to be aware of this option.